Top 3 tips for presenting data

As our world becomes more and more obsessed with data, it’s equally important to obsess about how you present that data. After all, a lot of key business decisions will be made based on data, and if the decision makers you present to don’t understand what you’re showing them on a slide or in a Prezi it could be disastrous for your business.

We could write an entire manual on how to present data in meaningful and engaging ways but we know you are all busy people, so here are our top 3 tips (in no particular order) to making those Columns count and those Rows resonate with your audience.

Tip 1 – Use Infogram

Infogram is an online tool for creating interactive infographics and dashboards. That might sound complicated but it’s really not. Inside Infogram are lots of stunning looking templates to help get you started and all you need to do is link your data sources into the document you’re working on. You can check out the features page to see how many different data sources you can choose from.

Once you have your Infogram file in place, you can share it online or just present it in person. A great example can be seen on the FC Barca website hereand you’ll notice that as you scroll down the web page the data unfolds. Once all of the data is there you can click on certain players names to switch their data on or off.

There are many examples like this on the Infogram website and if data is a big part of your presenting then we would highly recommend you check out this great piece of software.

Tip 2. Use the Logitech spotlight

Logitech’s latest wireless clicker is called the Spotlight because instead of using that very old fashioned looking laser pointer, it actually enables you to place a spotlight on certain pieces of content that you want to highlight.

This becomes extremely powerful with data. Image a line graph with 12 rows and 12 columns. There is going to be a lot of data for people to look at, and the worst thing you could do is have the entire graph on screen for 20-30 minutes so that people see everything at all times.

With the Spotlight you can have the graph on one slide, but then use the Spotlight to highlight the key bits of data up for discussion and block out the rest. Then when its time to move on you simply click the home button on the remote, highlight the next area of the chart, and discuss that area of data.

The Spotlight also has a great feature to magnify areas of your presentation, and you can set it to vibrate when your presentation time is coming to an end.

If you like the look of this clicker we would recommend you check out the Logitech website and use discount code ‘theprezenter’ for 33% off. You’re so welcome 👍

Tip 3. Use Prezi

Ye ye, of course we’d say that being official Prezi experts, but it’s true! The simplest feature of Prezi is the ability to zoom in to any area of your presentation.

You do that by using zoom areas which we’ve highlighted in the image opposite.

For your data that means that a complex chart or graph can be explored by zooming into the data. Once you zoom into some data you change the entire view for your audience, and you can reveal more content when you get there. Once you have talked about a certain data point you can return back out to see the whole chart.

This is an extremely simple way of bringing data to life and giving your audience a full understanding of how data points relate to one another.

In Summary

We all know how uninspiring data can look, but the fact is that it’s crucial to making informed business decisions. That means how you present it is extremely important and if you implement just one of the above tips you’ll be on your way to winning presentations.

We should add that every one of the tips above is extremely simple to implement. They don’t require lots of time, and certainly don’t need lots of cash and investment.

If you’d like advice or a free demo of any of the above methods then please reach out to us on the below contact form.